Our Impact

Launched in 2010 BayBrazil has become a reference in the Brazilian-American tech community looking to do business with Brazil & Silicon Valley, get informed about market trends and leading companies, interact with major players and establish new bilateral ties.

BayBrazil’s Advisors & Board of Directors are a cross section of Brazilian-American executives residing in the Bay Area and São Paulo representing entrepreneurs, corporations, investment firms, academia, and non-profit agencies.

Over the past ten years, here’s a bit of our impact on the innovation ecosystem:

• Since 2010, building the Brazilian-American tech hub in Silicon Valley & connecting it with Brazil

Community: over 20 thousand people: entrepreneurs, investors, tech leaders, academia

• Promoting dialogues on tech innovation – one conversation at a time
• Organizing unique events with in-depth discussions & exclusive interactions within our tech hub
• Opening doors to American & Brazilian businesses to benchmark, engage with potential partners
• Facilitating the access of Brazilian startups to tech players, investors and mentors
• Creating – from concept to execution – the largest Brazil-focused tech conference in Silicon Valley launched at Stanford University in 2012
• Interviewing dozens of leaders to add information and inspiration to our hub
• Gathering monthly news on deals and investments on Brazil startup scene
• Leading the Silicon Valley-Brazil digital bridge by facilitating meaningful dialogues among innovators
• Mapping founders, tech professionals and Brazilian-led ventures in Silicon Valley
• Fostering dialogues, new opportunities, ideas exchange by nurturing professional and cultural ties

“My partner participated in a BayBrazil program back in 2017. Right after, Margarise introduced us to a Silicon Valley senior engineer who became our advisor. His expertise has been instrumental for Altave” – Bruno Avena, Co-founder, Altave

BayBrazil has been facilitating a myriad of connections, opening doors to new business opportunities, partnerships, working alongside our Corporate Members, helping them to expand and succeed.

To mention just a few cases, BayBrazil has been:

• Connecting hundreds of tech executives with their peers in Brazil & Silicon Valley
• Facilitating startups access to tech players, investors and mentors
• Assisting a large corporation to fight fraud and cyber crimes
• Opening doors to American & Brazilian companies to engage with potential partners. Some examples include Apigee, Banco Itaú, Grupo SEB, Movile (see more below), Pinheiro Neto, Silicon Valley Bank

Movile is the industry leader for development of mobile content and ecommerce platforms in Latin America. With products for mobile phones, smartphones and tablets, the expansion to the U.S. was a natural course for the company but, it needed support to accomplish it. The company became a BayBrazil Corporate Member and here is how BayBrazil contributed to accelerate Movile’s goals in the region:

• BayBrazil provided Movile with access to high profile Silicon Valley leaders, from investors to tech executives, who became part of the company’s network and helped with various aspects of doing business in the region.
• One of Movile’s challenges was to recruit talent in Silicon Valley. BayBrazil introduced Movile to senior level professionals who joined the company as employees and are providing major contributions to the company’s growth, including to its app Playkids, which became a top grossing application in the Kids and Education categories in app stores globally, with 10M users in more than 100 countries.
• Through BayBrazil’s network, Movile executives have been featured as speakers in various tech events in the Bay Area which allowed the company to get exposure to diverse audiences in the U.S., Europe, and China.
• Movile was featured in BayBrazil’s events, including our annual conference Brazil in the 21st Century, at Stanford University. The 2014 edition brought a special outcome: in the audience, there was a Stanford professor, member of BayBrazil, who had a chance to get know and fall in love with Playkids’ story. As a result, Movile was invited to various speaking engagements and became a case study at Stanford Graduate School of Business, one of the most prominent schools in the world.
• In 2015 BayBrazil facilitated Movile’s introduction to Google, which helped the company to substantially expand Playkids’s penetration among Android users.

Here is the feedback of Eduardo Henrique, Co-Founder & Head of Global Expansion at PlayKids:

“BayBrazil supported Movile since we touch down in Silicon Valley in 2012. The entity opened the doors to a great networking in the BayArea that helped a lot to understand how to make business in Silicon Valley. From this networking we had great achievements in doing business with Apple, Google, Facebook and other partners and suppliers. We also received many advices from BayBrazil mentors and board members to understand how to leverage our business here. Another important aspect was the warm reception that my family had when we arrived here. Most of my close friends now came from the BayBrazil networking.”

BayBrazil has also been working with a number of individuals, encouraging knowledge-sharing, accelerating connections in Silicon Valley & Brazil.

From day one, we’ve been supporting founders and startups staff to access capital, mentorship and relevant advice to the process of building their companies.

To mention a few of our initiatives:

• In 2016 BayBrazil established a partnership with Google Developers Launchpad to expand our mentor program & support to Brazilian entrepreneurs. As a result, we teamed up to organize two workshops with training and mentorship.

• In September of 2017 and September of 2016 we co-hosted 32 companies selected by BayBrazil partners for a special series of talks & mentoring sessions.

• In 2013 worked with Desafio Brasil, a business competition in various Brazilian states. Through BayBrazil’s initiative and a partnership with Plug and Play Tech Center, the teams of two winner startups spent three months in Silicon Valley.

•  In December of 2011, BayBrazil helped the organizers of TEDxBayArea who were in search of a Brazilian female entrepreneur to be a guest speaker in its conference. Our team was able to locate and recommend Ana Gabriela Pessoa, CEO and founder of Ezlearn Educacional, the first Brazilian woman ever to participate.